1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sheet setting processing in a print control apparatus that allows an application to designate print setting of print data.
2. Description of the Related Art
A print control apparatus of an information processing apparatus, such as a personal computer, can control a printing apparatus that executes print processing of a document or an image produced by a document editing application or an image editing application.
An application installed on an information processing apparatus can obtain a list of selectable output sheets at arbitrary timing and set an output sheet as one of print conditions for a printing apparatus. A user can select a desired sheet from the obtained list of output sheets and set an output sheet at arbitrary timing.
An output sheet setting method by an application can be selected among several options: e.g., setting based on a sheet identification (ID), setting based on a sheet name, and setting based on a sheet size (sheet width and sheet length).
The sheet ID is an identifier widely used to designate an output sheet. Even if a sheet size (sheet width and sheet length) is the same, a sheet ID allocated to a sheet may be different depending on a printing apparatus. Therefore, an application obtains a list of selectable output sheets when an actually used printing apparatus is determined and selects, as sheet setting, a sheet ID of a desirable sheet from the obtained output sheet list.
In addition to the above-mentioned setting methods, print conditions can be set according to a predetermined format defined by an Extensible Markup Language (XML) schema. The format defined by an XML schema is generally referred to as “print schema”, and the print conditions set according to a print schema can be referred to as “print ticket.”
Similar to the above-mentioned sheet ID-oriented sheet setting, when an output sheet is set in a print ticket according to a print schema, setting values allocated to a sheet may be different depending on a printing apparatus even though a sheet size (sheet width and sheet length) is the same. Therefore, an application obtains a list of selectable output sheets when an actually used printing apparatus is determined and selects, as sheet setting, setting values of a desirable sheet from the obtained output sheet list.
When the output sheet setting is completed according to any one of the above-described setting methods and a print execution is instructed to a printing apparatus, the print control apparatus determines whether a selected output sheet is supported by the printing apparatus.
If an output sheet is supported by the printing apparatus, the print control apparatus causes the printing apparatus to execute image processing according to the sheet setting designated by an application.
On the other hand, if an output sheet is not supported by the printing apparatus, the print control apparatus cancels and rewrites the sheet setting designated by an application into predetermined sheet setting and causes the printing apparatus to execute image processing according to the predetermined sheet setting.
Furthermore, when the output sheet setting is a sheet size (sheet width and sheet length)-oriented setting, the sheet size designated by an application may exceed a maximum sheet width or a maximum sheet length supported by a printing apparatus. In this case, the print control apparatus reduces the size of a print image based on the maximum sheet width and the maximum sheet length supported by a printing apparatus (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-287496).
As mentioned above, if an output sheet set by an application is supported by a printing apparatus, the printing apparatus executes image processing according to the sheet setting designated by the application as intended by a user.
However, if an output sheet set by an application is not supported by a printing apparatus, the printing apparatus executes image processing according to rewritten sheet setting (i.e., predetermined sheet setting). Thus, print data may be lost and the size of a print image may be reduced. As a result, a print result may not be obtained as intended by a user.
In this case, obtaining a list of output sheets supported by a printing apparatus immediately before starting print processing of edited document (or image) data and setting an output sheet from the obtained output sheet list is desirable to exclude any output sheet not supported by a printing apparatus.
However, the data layout region of a document or an image is generally determined according to the sheet setting. The determination of an output sheet is accomplished before creating or editing document data or image data.
The print processing may be started immediately after an output sheet is determined and editing document (or image) data is completed. On the other hand, the edited data may be stored in a file together with the sheet setting for print output at later timing.
In the latter case, the file may be distributed to another user. The file may be copied in another information processing apparatus. The printing apparatus may be replaced with a new machine. Therefore, the printing apparatus selected in editing the document (or image) data may be different from a printing apparatus actually executing the print processing.
If the printing apparatus selected in the output sheet setting is different from the printing apparatus actually executing the print processing, the printing apparatus is required to execute print processing with an output sheet not supported by the printing apparatus. Thus, the above-mentioned problems will arise.
In an attempt to avoid the above-mentioned problems and obtain an intended print result, a user may be requested to manually select an output sheet supported by an actually used printing apparatus before starting print processing. However, changing the sheet setting may require changing the layout region of document data or image data. As a result, a user may be required to re-edit the document data or image data.